


That Gemstone Guy

by Serriya (Keolah)



Series: Interdimensional Bridge [22]
Category: DemonWars Saga - R. A. Salvatore, Dungeons & Dragons - Fandom, Rifts
Genre: Chaos Theory, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-18
Updated: 2006-05-18
Packaged: 2017-12-09 01:35:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/768443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keolah/pseuds/Serriya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A dimension-hopping dragon and a technomancer are working on a chaos theory project, when some random guy best forgotten about shows up and interrupts their work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Gemstone Guy

Suzy and Kid doubtless found their bizarre chaos theory project very entertaining, but then after a while some guy showed up. A blond male elf Catalyst by the name of Sannari Anazati. And he didn't appear to be too happy about what they were doing to his homeworld.

The sheer mass of data that had been accumulated was fascinating, and they'd set computers to the task of sorting through it for patterns as well as anomalies. Overall, Kid was quite content with how things were turning out and had developed a healthy respect as well as great admiration for the mind that lay beneath Suzcecoz's exterior. The people? Uhhh, huh? What? Who? Pfft, please.

Sannari, the meddling Catalyst he was, began to attempt to dismantle the magical portion of their experiments with antimagic and unraveling weaves. "This is a travesty!" he exclaimed to nobody in particular. "Who dares do such a thing?"

A blinking red light on a console drew Kid's attention away from his study of the most recent day's findings, and he quirked a brow as he went over to take a look at the readouts. What the...

"Hmmm," he muttered, digging out a sucker and popping it into his mouth. "Someone or something's not doing what it should there. Hmm. Hmm." He chuckled, shrugged, and teleported out in the general direction to take a closer look.

Sannari, having gotten a taste of the flavor of the weaves involved, proceeded to try to locate who might be responsible for them tracing it from that. "What _are_ you doing?" he demanded of Kid, though the weaves weren't a precise match for him.

"Actually, that's more my question," Kid replied, looking past the stranger to study the flux of energies and destruction beyond the fellow. "You do realize that a considerable amount of effort has gone into these, don't you?"

"You--You--Argh! This is _my_ planet! You can't just come in here and start messing around with it like you own the place!"

"Your planet?" Kid quirked a brow and smirked, crunching on the sucker and rolling it from one side of his mouth to the other. "Funny thing, that, never saw a deed of ownership anyplace, and it was a total hellhole to begin with. Something about everything being nuked by some army or another." He waved a hand dismissively. "Consider it a public service project. Keeps things interesting."

Sannari flailed his arms about angrily, looking as though he was about to burst a vein. "This planet was never nuked by any army! That I know of. Not that I've been here in a few decades. But still! It's the principle of it!"

Kid laughed. "Lot can happen in a few decades, pal. What was that name? Heehaw?" he snapped his fingers as he tried to think of it. "Thornbush? Hawthorne! That's the one... seems she got a tad bit pissy and went all Conan on _your_ planet. Anyway, there wasn't a hell of a lot left when Suz and I moved in, just a few towns here and there." He shrugged, not thinking much of them other as variables, really.

"Hawthorne!" Sannari snarled. "Suz.. Suzcecoz? She's here too? I _thought_ I recognized the smell of her magic." He snorted. "Well, you're just going to have to find another planet to terrorize, because I'm shutting your little operation down right now."

Kid just looked at him for a moment, as though puzzled or not understanding what the man was rambling on madly about. "Uh yeah, right. Look, I'm sure you had a lovely vacation spot set up on a beach someplace. Go ahead and keep it. I don't care. As for stopping the project? Well, sorry, that's not going to happen until something more interesting comes along."

"You'll have to pay me a planet full of gemstones for sale of this property!" Sannari insisted.

Kid rolled his eyes, then shook his head. "Look, old-timer, you want gemstones, I can get you gemstones, if that'll get you to go back to your little rock and back to sleep. I don't really care, they're pretty damned useless except as conductors for certain elements anyway. I'm tellin' ya right now, though, there's pretty much nothing that's going to stop the project right now."

Sannari proceeded to open a rift in the sky, and gemstones begin to pour out like hail, flying down toward the ground.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Kid exclaimed, throwing an arm over his head to ward off the stones even though he didn't really need to, then lest loose an exasperated sigh. "Look, you going to go away or what? I've got a generator to patch up now that you're done screwing around with it."

"I _have_ a planet full of gemstones!" Sannari snapped back. "And now you're going to get it... right on top of your head!"

The gemstones continued to pour through in increasing volume. Kid growled as the gems began to pile up around him, not worried or concerned in the least, but he was getting a tad miffed and impatient.

"Fine, you want to be a pain?" he asked, the glare he bestowed on the other becoming considerably more immediately menacing as he reverted to his normal draconic form and shook the gems away. "Unless your name's Saint George, I'm gonna have to ask you to take a hike. Now."

Sannari rolled his eyes, the gemstones not seeming to touch him, and said, "Size does not scare me! You could be a giant or an imp but what really matters is the power you wield!"

"Size matters when you don't feel like being up to your ass in baubles," Kid retorted, then laid down atop the growing sea of gems comfortably and traced a claw idly through them. "Quite pretty, really, but I don't really see the point to this little tantrum. Neat trick and all, but I somehow doubt you have the pull to swing me or Suz off this rock before something more amusing rolls around."

"I could slap enough antimagic around to stop whatever you're doing flat," Sannari said. "And I'm an omnimancer! Oh yes, I wished for a planet full of magical gemstones, and after decades of continuous channeling, I have full capability in all talents!"

Kid nodded sagely. "Yup, yup, anti-magic. Great stuff. Toss out a great big field of it, please." He grinned toothily. "And that's when size _does_ matter. But anyway..." He shrugged it off with a sweep of a claw. "I won't even go into what I can do. No reason to when you live on the very magic around you, y'know? So..." He flapped his wings, sending accumulated gems flying in all directions, then tented them again at a deflecting angle. "What say you go find another rabbit hole, Alice? This one's not up for new tenants at the moment."

The gemstones continued to pour down like a very expensive rainstorm. The surrounding landscape was beginning to grow rather colorful and sparkly.

Sannari snorted softly and said, "And where am I supposed to go? This is my home!"

"So move into a nook and enjoy the fun," Kid replied with a snort, a warm wash of sulfuric-tainted breath passing over the man. "You'd be surprised what this little project has been coming up with, and it sure as hell has kept life more interesting around here. Just ask any of the natives."

Sannari looked thoughtful and indecisive, but at least he wasn't really pissed off at the moment. "What _are_ you doing exactly?"

"A bit of this, a bit of that," Kid replied absently, running his claws through the carpet of gems... okay, he had to admit that there was something inherently appealing to the things for his draconic nature and he'd probably stuff a few clawfulls away before leaving. "Mostly it boils down to letting the generators create random flows of magic, sometimes opening portals here and there," he added, "Then studying _why_ things happened."

Sannari caught a fist-sized ruby out of the air which flew a little too close to him and tossed it about between his hands. "Why?"

"To see how things really tick," Kid replied. "Fascinating stuff, really, to sow a bit of chaos and then start discerning the patterns in the seemingly random noise. Gives you a lot to think about when it comes to magic, in particular, since there's a logic and physics to that just as surely as any other natural force."

"And through this you will unveil the secrets of the universe and gain unlimited cosmic power?"

"Whadda I look like, the Genie?" Kid snickered. "Nah, nothing so grandiose, but then again who knows? Any little tidbit I can pick up along the way is good enough for me, all part and parcel of being a dragon I suppose... besides, it's interesting as well as informative, and the company is good."

"Whatever," Sannari said, tossing the ruby to the ground where it settled with its cousins. "I have an awful lot of gemstones."

"They make for good bedding material." Kid chuckled, stretching a bit and then returning to lazing. "But I really can't see what good they do you, considering you probably wouldn't think so, and they're pretty damn near worthless with replicators around."

True there were types that wouldn't have quite the proper 'resonance' for magic when replicated, but that was a sidenote.

"Well, they're _magic_ ," Sannari said. "Back in the day, it was popular for 'smart' mages to wish for gemstones rather than power directly because you could get more bang for your wish out of it."

"Still a bit of a point to that, I suppose," Kid replied. "Though there's better ways to go about things now, what with technology catching up and zipping past as it has."

"Technology is inferior to magic and always will be. It is inherently flawed and mere gadgets cannot do what magic can."

Kid couldn't help but snort in amusement at that. "Hey, wake up and join the new millennium, pal. They're neck and neck, now, and when you combine the two..." He grinned.

Sannari cocked his head, seeming vaguely curious. "But why would someone _want_ to use metal and plastic to do what you can do with magic more easily?"

"Remember what you said about getting more bang for yer buck?" Kid chuckled deeply. "Ask some of the people at the recent competition just what that _really_ means now, or hell go take a look at the Eyes of Truth, Suz tends to leave that a pretty open ship."

"Bah. Fine. I shall see your experiments."

Kid chuckled once more, reverting casually to his normal appearance between one breath and the next. "Oh, have you got some surprises waiting for you! Trust me, I've loved the idea since I ran across it as a hatchling ages ago, and Suz has put a spin on it that's gonna make you _dizzy_." 

"I won't ask whether you mean that as figuratively or literally, as knowing Suzcecoz it could easily be either."

Kid just grinned and began whistling a merry tune, gesturing for the man to follow him. Anyone familiar with it would recognize it instantly as the tune young Dorothy and her companions sang while setting off to see the great and mighty Wizard of Oz.


End file.
